Journey to One Piece

18. Naguri

"Oi Ken... Are you alright?" Ace said with a little fear in his voice. He had heard about the power of Ken but seeing it in reality was a different matter. He just burnt a lion with lightning. He didn't even need fire. 

They didn't understand why Ken suddenly became infuriated with a weak lion. Ken didn't reply to them but said to Luffy 

"Luffy, tell us again what your dream was?" 

"Hahahah.. I already told you. I will not repeat again... Shesheshehe.." He said with his iconic ear to ear smile and laugh. Ken didn't hold for a second and just lifted him up by his collar. 

"Say it again!!" Ken demanded. Ace and Sabo didn't understand why Ken was a little agitated with just the notion of dreams. They went to separate Luffy and Ken. But in the end they were not able to. 

Ken held Luffy by his collar in the air but Luffy gave his answer in the form of a grin to Ken. After a few seconds of looking each other in the eyes Ken gave up with a sigh.

"Do I have to wait till the end of Kaido to know what his dream was again? Why did fate just pull a wool on me?"  

After this small incident everything was back to normal. They went home with food that night and like always went out early in the morning to practice secretly. Until this point, none of the three had opened their mouths about them being ninjas. Even Luffy who had a loud mouth was silent about this at Dadan's home and acted normally. Ken really didn't care about this.

Them having special powers would come out one day or the other. And if it did, not many would point it out as the world of One Piece was itself filled with mysteries and nobody could say that he or she knew everything. But he was happy that Luffy and others were considerate about the secrecy and acted as normal as possible.

Though Luffy was having a hard time not opening his mouth and spilling. Sabo had to go and shut his mouth. In this manner a few more days went by and the three other brothers had now become more proficient in ninjutsus. Ace had learnt the first move of the Eight Trigrams. Sabo now could use vacuum style on shurikens and throw it though it didn't have that much power like the actual ones and could only travel a few metres but there was progress.

Luffy was the one who suffered the most because he needed to use both ninjutsu and his rubber power. Ken was not ready to compromise on the rubber power. Only using his rubber power would he reach the Nika mode so it needed special attention. 

"Why do I need the rubber fruit? I can use my ninjutsu to beat my enemies in future." Luffy didn't understand and complained. Ken as usual gave him a punch on the head and said 

"Ninjutsu is powerful but at times when you will run out of chakra what will you do? Your physical body is more important here. And this goes for both Sabo and Ace. Ninjutsu is fine but body is where the true power lies here." Ken lectured. This woke both Sabo and Ace too. They thought ninjutsu, shuriken and kunai would be enough but it seemed like they had been daydreaming too much.

So in addition to Luffy, Sabo and Ace too returned back to physical fights too afternoon everyday. After days of training it was time to have some fun and they 4 returned to Gray Terminal. And this time they didn't hide. They just walked in like they owned the place and the people who lived there gave them space and respect. 

A bunch of kids were now feared in Gray Terminal. The beating of Ken with his magical hammer was still vivid in the minds of the spectators. The 4 sneaked into a restaurant using the royal privilege of Sabo. The 4 brothers had their stomach full to the brim. 

It was only Ken who was a little unhappy as there was no wine, no alcohol, no beer. Thor's character was rubbing off on him in a little wrong way but it was good that he preferred meat like Luffy. While returning from the restaurant, it was Sabo's father who noticed Sabo and had a grim face. Ken had already seen him from the corner of his eye but didn't react. 

He hoped that Sabo's father would come after them!!

After having some fun, they continued their practice. After a month of practice, the three other brothers finally decided to go for one of the rulers of the forest. The huge bear!

The bear was slow but it had quite thick fur. If they could take it down it would be tantamount to a seal in the progress and they could go for the other kings of the forest. And so after finding the bear the three made their own strategy while Ken just looked at them from a cliff. He was there to save them if anything went wrong.

"Ace I will use shuriken to hurt its eyes, legs and hands in order to incapacitate him and make him slow. You can use your Eight Trigrams. Luffy you can use your wind style bullets on him to make him hurt. This bastard has a very thick skin so we need to be close when we carry out the plan." Sabo laid the plan of confronting the bear and they ran towards it. 

But it was then they saw an old man coming right at the middle of this. The old man looked like a normal old man but Ken was happy to see the old man. He had been waiting to see him and learn from him. 

"Oi ossan make way for us! This bear is huge. You will die." Ace screamed in horror seeing that the old man was quite near to the charging bear who had already thought of these runts as his targets.